Winter NAMM 2000 Report
Part Five
STEINBERG: Another manufacturer with so many new products that it’s tough to know where to begin. Some of the highlights? Three new Virtual Studio Instruments plug-ins. The Pro-Five VST Plug-in Synthesizer ($199) is based on the legendary Prophet Five synth used by many bands in the 80s. The quality of the plug-in is fully equal to the original hardware version. More importantly, there is no fixed limit to the number of voices, there are more preset memories, and you also get velocity sensitivity, MIDI automation of all available parameters, and the ability to run several Pro-Five’s in parallel. The second plug-in is the Model-E VST Plug-in Analog Virtual Synthesizer ($199), with 16 multitimbral parts, up to 64 voices and 8 outputs per instrument. The sound is pure, fat analog. It’s also the first software synth optimized for the Apple Mac G4 Velocity Engine. Finally, there’s the LM-4 VST Plug-in Drum Machine ($99), an amazing assortment of drum machine sounds. LM-4 comes with 20 high quality sound sets, each containing at least 18 drum sounds. You can also build your own kits.
They also showed the current version of Nuendo ($1299), an entire Media Production System with hardware and software components. Basically, it’s a 128-track audio recording facility and 128-channel audio mixer. Nuendo has a computer card that handles all the I/O functions so as not to put a big strain on the host computer, which leaves it to take care of processing and other tasks more efficiently. It can run on anything from a high-end notebook to a multi-processor based system. Hardware components include the 96/52 Digital Core Connectivity Card ($799), and the 8 I/O ($1999), offering 24-bit AD/DA. There’s also Timelock Pro Word Clock ($999), an interface which reads VITC and LTC time code and generates MTC MIDI time code together with a phrase-locked, low jitter wordclock reference. The surround sound features are implemented in an ingenious way that we think will soon be copied by many other programs. More on the Nuendo system and Steinberg’s other new releases as we get it.
TANNOY: Their Proto-J Nearfield Monitor is a high-quality, compact playback monitor with features such as extended low frequency response and controlled dispersion. It’s ideal for all types of project studios.
MARSHALL: An acoustic guitar amp from Marshall? They exist, and our raised eyebrows were lowered when we got a look and listen. The AS80R Acoustic Guitar Amplfier ($1199) is an 80-watt chorus combo that sounds amazing. If you’ve ever heard one of Marshall’s acoustic amps you’ll know what we mean. All that power and clarity applied to a more delicate sound, and the results are stunning.
GENERAL MUSIC: The latest in their Equinox Series of workstation synthesizers, the Equinox 88 Pro ($3,969) features 88 weighted keys and comes complete with an internal hard disk pre-loaded with a selection of excellent sounds. There’s also a built-in SCSI interface.
EMAGIC: The release of the new Logic Audio Version 4.2 for Mac and Windows 98 means new stuff all around. The EXS24 Xtreme Sampler 24 Bit ($299) lets you add some great sampling power to your Logic Audio system. It provides users with up to 32 voices per EXS24, sample accurate timing, full automation, and one of the most intuitive graphic user interfaces we’ve ever seen. They were also showing off a new plug-in called the ES1 Synthesizer One ($299). Like the name says, it’s a virtual synthesizer created especially for Logic Audio. You can use up to 8 ES1 instruments at once, with up to 16 voices per ES1, and you get seamless integration with all effects in Logic’s internal digital mixer.
Their new MT4 USB MIDI Interface ($149) is Emagic’s cross-platform, affordable USB MIDI interface. All inputs and outputs are fully addressable for a maximum of 32 channel input and 64-channel output.
They’ve also released version 3.0 of Soundiver ($49), their Universal Editor Librarian.